


the hardest part of this is leaving you

by assassin_trifecta



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: All of this is sad, Cancer, Emotional Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, I needed to write this to get it out of my system, It's All Sad, Look okay so this episode was unnecessary and hurt me in ways that I wasn't prepared for, Mentions of Cancer, Pancreatic cancer, in which Harry is actually dying and not just a fucking asshole, there's no joy anywhere in here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-28 03:44:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10069739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/assassin_trifecta/pseuds/assassin_trifecta
Summary: Harry has done things to keep his daughter safe before, but sometimes time is of the essence (and he just doesn't have much left).





	

**Author's Note:**

> As someone who lost their father to terminal illness within the past year and let characters like Harry, Joe West, and others take his place, the insensitivity that the writers afforded Harry in this past episode was... difficult to stomach. Sometimes you just need to write things to get it out. Sometimes you just have to hurt a little more to recover. This isn't beta'd at all.

“I’m sick, Wally,” Harry’s throat tightened, his eyes closed beneath rimmed glasses. He hadn’t wanted to tell anyone. He was going to tell Jesse when they got back. The trip to Gorilla City – he had hoped that maybe, maybe he would be gone before they found him. It would save them, his friends and his Jesse, from knowing. From hurting. It was going to happen eventually, he knew. He’d have to tell them. He was fifty-three. A scientist. A veteran. He swallowed. Wally stared at him. Harry felt his stomach clench. “I’m dying.”

                “Sir, I-“

                “West.” Harry’s eyes shot open and he focused his glare on Wally, though there was no heat in the blue of his eyes. “I intended to tell Jesse when we returned to our Earth.” He told the young man. This hurt him. He wanted Jesse to be happy, saw that Wally made it so. She would be better off here, with the people that she cared about. With people that cared about her. “I intended to leave my company to her, in due time.” That was what Tess would have wanted. If he couldn’t recover. Jesse was a brilliant girl. She could run STAR labs on her own as it stood.

                Jesse was in college. She was gone for months at a time and Harry knew he couldn’t hide it for much longer as her semester came to an end. One chemo treatment was easy enough to hide. Jesse hadn’t even noticed when Barry and the others dragged him back through the breach. He was grateful that Caitlin hadn’t done a full scan. His daughter hadn’t seen the change. But he couldn’t hide the degradation of his body for much longer.

                “How long?” Wally’s question took him off guard, how close it was to his own thoughts. The care, the fear in the young man’s voice. It was… unexpected. “How long have you known, how long do you-“ His question cut off, and it cut deep. Harry almost choked.

                “The survival rate of pancreatic cancer on my Earth is higher than this one,” Harry had to busy himself through this. Keep his hands working. Cisco’s equipment needed his finer touch. “The single year survival rate is up to thirty-five percent.” He swallowed. “Five year is at ten.” A pause. “It’s been a month.” His two-week tryst in Africa put him behind on his second chemo treatment.

                “Sir,” Wally said again. “I-“

                “Don’t tell her, Wallace,” Harry didn’t beg for a lot of things in his life, but he found himself turning to this young man, this child, with a plea in his eyes. “She can’t know. Not yet. I need to be – I need her to be – I need her, I-“

                “Harry.” Wally’s voice was soft, low. He could sense Harry’s panic, and offered a comfort that Harry didn’t want or deserve. His hand reached out, and though Harry flinched, he allowed Wally’s palm to land on his shoulder. Caring, warm. The way a speedster should be. “I won’t.”

\---

                “Hey, Dead Man.” Jesse’s cutting tone searing through the speed lab sent Harry’s heart into his stomach, and his muscles clenched in preparation for the fight that was inevitable. He should have known better. Wallace. He couldn’t even look at his daughter. The guilt cut him quicker than Jesse’s words. “I really can’t believe you, you know? _Cancer_? You’re going to pull that _now_ , really? What _won’t_ you do to keep me with you? I’m moving to Earth one, dad, and that’s-“

                “Jesse Wells!” Harry could remember the last time that he yelled at his daughter. She was five and he was _busy_. He was in work mode and she had escaped her nanny – his PA, he should have paid her more – to find him in his office. He remembered her stricken face. How guilty he felt. He’d promised himself then that he’d never yell at her again. Especially not in front of everyone.

                The team was silent. He noticed Cisco had stopped talking when Jesse came in. Caitlin’s breath caught on ‘cancer’. Joe made an objective sound when he _shouted_ at his daughter. Harry was sure Joe West never yelled at his kids.

                Jesse was caught off guard. She wouldn’t remember the last yelling incident, but he did. Tears stung Harry’s eyes but he’d vowed sixteen years ago he’d never let tears fall in front of people he cared about again.

                “ _Jesse Wells_ ,” His voice was softer this time. Desperate. The same plea that he’d used with Wally before. “Now is _not_ the time.”

                “Really? Cause I think-“

                “Jesse!” Another yell. The same promise broken twice within seconds. He felt sick. Acutely aware of the tumor wiggling its way into his upper mesenteric artery. Like a stone. A lump lodged in his throat like a pebble of it broken off and sticking there, metastasizing through him at light speed and choking him on the reality that he was about to _die._ “Jesse, please.”

                She was a smart girl. His beautiful, brilliant daughter. But she was about as emotionally capable as he was, and that was the curse of raising her alone. If Tess had been around… Harry liked to think that Jesse would have been better off emotionally if her mother had been present in her life. Because she scoffed, her face contorting with the understanding of his tone. Something was wrong. That much she knew, but he could see it play across her face like the doctor had seen it play across his. Frustration. Disbelief. Pain. She glared at him, ice-blue eyes so much like his own – no, like her _mother’s_ – cutting him deeper. He could see her swallow the lump in her throat. Battle the tears she felt coming.

                She was gone in a burst of golden lightning.

                Silence in the speed lab.

                Harry swallowed, turned back to Joe West.

                “So, all you have to do is concentrate-“

                “Harry-“

                “On your memories of-“

                “ _Harry._ ”

                “Of Grodd.” He ignored them. Looked at Cisco. Confusion, sympathy. Emotions he didn’t want to see. He forced himself to work. “Are you ready?”

                “Cancer?”

                Harry shut his eyes tight. Exactly what he didn’t want. Earth One didn’t need to know that another Harrison Wells was dying. His friends… they didn’t need this. All he wanted to do was tell Jesse on his own time. To go back to his Earth and live his year, maybe two, with his daughter. He had money, he had fame, and science. But his body was no different than anyone else’s. He didn’t expect the ten percent.

                “Cisco.”

                “ _Harry_.”

                “Caitlin!” Another yell, exasperation. Snow wasn’t Jesse but the promise held the same. She and Barry stared at him, their expressions worse than Cisco’s.

                “Not now,” He begged them, gesturing between Joe, the machine. The potential end of Central City. Harry turned back to the computer, jabbing uselessly at the keys and trying desperately to get this over with because they needed to _know_. He shut his eyes tight but he could still feel the splash back of tears against his glasses. Another promise. To himself, but still broken.

                “I’m begging you,” he whispered, silencing the team. “Please. Not now.”


End file.
